Opening Illustration: I accomplished my 2024 goal in 7 days.  We are 7 days into 2024. How are those goals and resolutions going?! I know some of you are thinking, “Thanks for starting for that, Jess. Now I feel badly.” What I’m going to say next won’t help… Do you want to know what one of my 2024 goals? Sure you do. In 2024, I set a goal to run a half marathon. Well, yesterday, I accomplished that goal. I finished my 2024 goal in 6 days! You are either mad at me or – you are rolling your eyes at me because you know that I’ve spent the last 5 months training for this half marathon. It just happened that this marathon was 6 days in 2024. So, why not take a win in the new year’s resolution category?! If I had to use one word to describe what it was like to reach my goal, it would be “anti-climatic”. Now, the race itself was a ton of fun. It was the reward for all the training. But I actually ran a half marathon about 2 weeks ago before the actual race. There wasn’t confetti and streamers when I finished. It just felt like I did what I was supposed to do. Where the satisfaction comes into play is looking back and seeing where I was as a runner – and as a person – and where I am today. And I don’t want to go back to where I was. For me, that’s the secret sauce for hitting my goals – to simultaneously move away from where I am and to move towards where I want to be.

Today, we jump back into the book of Hebrews and we see the same thing for our spiritual lives. We must simultaneously move away from our sinful desires and move toward holiness. And that’s what I want you to grab a hold of this morning: Move toward holiness. Can I tell you where God convicted me this week? I’ve made some 2024 goals, I didn’t make any goals to be more holy. I made some goals that will benefit me spiritually, but none of them are intentional about me becoming holier. None of your 2024 goals matter if you don’t become holier. If none of your goals draw you closer to Jesus so that you can become like Jesus, then throw them away, rework them, or repurpose them. Here’s some good news: our Scripture passage for the first Sunday of 2024 tells us what it means to become holier. And this passage may change the course of your entire year. Let’s read God’s Word with that kind of expectancy. Open up your Bibles to Hebrews 10. We are in our Sermon Series: Hebrews. We are picking up where we left off in November. We’ll spend the next 11 weeks finishing up the book. Read Hebrews 10:10-18. Pray. 

I know we stepped away from the book of Hebrews to end the year, but chapter 10 is the perfect place to pick back up. If you missed some of last year, you’ll jump right in. Up until chapter 10, we’ve seen some incredible truth, promises, and warnings in the book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews emphasizes that we are to hold tight to Jesus because why? Because Jesus is better. He’s better than the angels, Moses, and Melchizedek. We are told not to drift away from God’s truth. We are called to grow in our faith. And we saw just how much better the new system of worship is. Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament sacrificial system so that we can live in the new covenant. The first half of chapter 10 that we are looking at today wraps up everything that the writer of Hebrews has been saying so far. The writer of Hebrews puts it all into this one idea that we are to pursue holiness. If that’s the goal, then here’s where we start: Look at what Jesus did for you. 

1) Look at what Jesus did for you. (vs. 1-9) Isn’t that a great place to start?! And it’s refreshing isn’t it? The message we hear over and over again is that we have to look inside of us to become better. I don’t know about you, but that hasn’t worked out the best for me. If that’s you too, then let’s stop looking at ourselves and start looking at Jesus. What are we looking at then? In these first 9 verses of chapter 10, the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice for what? Look at verses 1 through 4: ¹The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. ² If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. ³ But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. ⁴ For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 

To jog everyone’s memory, in the Old Testament, the priests had to sacrifice animals in order to atone for the sins of the people. Without these sacrifices, the people would be out of relationship with God and under the guilt of their sins. These first four verses show us that the major problem with the sacrificial system in the Old Testament was that it didn’t accomplish what was needed the most – the finality of sin. These sacrifices had to be made repetitively. God established this system in the Old Testament to be provisional, not permanent. One of the effects of the repetition of sacrifices was that the people were constantly reminder of their sins. There is a game on my phone that one of my kids loves to play against me. I’m terrible at it. Every time I open that game, I’m reminded just how bad I am at it. That’s the feeling the people had under the Old Testament system. Every time there was a sacrifice, they reminded of their sins. It was a perpetual reminder.

Then, in verse 5, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that everything changes with Jesus. ⁵ That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. ⁶ You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. ⁷ Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God—as is written about me in the Scriptures.’” ⁸ First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). ⁹ Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. Jesus came to do the will of the Father. Jesus came to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice. That’s the only way the sacrificial system would be fulfilled. The animal sacrifices were never meant to last. They were only shadows or previews of what was to come – which is Jesus. And we are about to see that Jesus’ sacrifice is one and for all – it was final. What God is calling us to do in these verses is to look at what Jesus did. We are to look at Jesus as the only one who could be the perfect and holy sacrifice. Most people in the world don’t want to do that though. For the most part, people don’t like to gaze on the holiness of Jesus. Why?

What happens when you turn your eyes on the holiness of Jesus? What did Peter do in Luke 5:8? ⁸ When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man.” When we gaze on the holiness of Jesus, we can’t help but see our sinfulness. This is why it’s easier to latch on to the message from the world to look at yourself. That’s why it’s easier to make goals that have nothing to do with your holiness. But if you are tired of staying where you are and not moving to where you are supposed to be, the first step is to gaze on the holiness of Jesus. See His standard of righteousness. See how you pale in comparison to Him. Don’t avoid the uncomfortable. Quote: “In other words seeing Jesus clearly causes us to be deeply conscious of our sinfulness and our unworthiness. This is a wonderful thing. Most of us are in a deadly dream world most of the time when it comes to how seriously we are in trouble with God because of our sin. We worry more about being stopped by a policeman for speeding than we do about the seriousness of sin. But sin is infinitely serious. And God's anger at sinners is the biggest problem in everyone's life, whether we know it or not.” – John Piper. Put it this way: Falling on your face before God is not an experience to avoid, but a moment to cherish. 

Now, I get that all this doesn’t seem to exciting or uplifting. But if you want see your life change and move towards holiness, it starts by moving away from sinfulness. There is a beautiful reality following these verses. What we see next is what changes within us when we accept Jesus as the perfect sacrifice: See your holy standing before God.

2) See your holy standing before God. (vs. 10-13) There are two verses I want you to highlight in your Bible. Verse 10 is the first one. Look at what it says: ¹⁰ For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time. There is so much goodness in verse 10!

1. For God’s will was for us to be made holy
2. by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ,
3. once for all time.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, it was once for all time. The need for continual sacrifices were gone. Jesus came, died, and provided us a way out of the guilt and punishment of our sins. The solution to our internal problem was the work Jesus did on the cross. That unresolvable guilt that you feel because you don’t belong to Jesus can only be resolved by Jesus. When you believe that Jesus is who He says he is and believe He did what He did, Jesus takes your unholy soul and makes it holy. That’s God’s will – that’s what God wants – that’s why the Father sent the Son. So, that you can stand before God as holy – as blameless – without guilt. My favorite picture we see in Scripture is that when you begin a personal relationship with Jesus is that Jesus takes His righteousness and wraps it around you. Illustration: Dune (and others) steals my heated blanket. This Christmas I got one of the coolest gifts – a heated blanket! This was also a good reminder of how I’m getting older when I get excited about a heated blanket. But do you know how long I’ve used that blanket? About 5 minutes. It has been stolen by my kids, my wife, and even my dog. It’s so amazing. Everyone wants to be wrapped up in this blanket because it brings you from being cold to being warm – it brings you from one place to another.  That’s what the righteousness of Christ does. It brings you from apart from God, bound for hell, to in relationship with God, bound for heaven.

Look at the scene in heaven starting in verse 11: ¹¹ Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. ¹² But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ¹³ There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. After Jesus completed the work on the cross, He rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven. Jesus then sat down – because the work was done and He didn’t need to stand like the Old Testament priests. Now, Jesus is waiting for the day when all of His enemies are defeated. And it’s not just defeated, but they will be completely subjected to Him. He will squash them. Illustration: Deflating Air Mattress. Over the Christmas break, there were 18 of us that stayed at my parents’ house at one time. There were air mattresses everywhere. One night, one of my kids woke me up and said, “Dad, my air mattress has a hole in it.” I looked over and see this child starting to fold up like a taco, but completely squashing the air mattress. That’s the image here: Jesus deflating all of His enemies.

And there you are, seeing all of this, standing holy before God because the righteousness of Christ wrapped around you. Quit believing the lies from Satan that you are anything else than made holy by Jesus. Quit believing the lies that you are worthless and unworthy. Start believing the truth that your status has changed – that you are now made holy in the sight of God because of what Jesus did for you. If you want to move toward holiness, you need this right perspective. Our holiness isn’t the boasting of the strong and self-sufficient. Our holiness is the cry of the weak who have turned this eyes to Jesus and pleaded for their salvation from Him.  

Now I get some of you may be saying, “This sounds great. But Jess, I don’t “feel” holy.” Right, because you are still battling unholiness. Jesus did the necessary work so that you can become holy. When you accept Jesus’ work, you become holy in position and status. But you are still living in a world full of sin and unholiness. Which brings us back to where we started: we must move toward holiness. Here’s why: You are being made holy.

3) You are being made holy. (vs. 14-18) The second verse I want you to underline is verse 14: ¹⁴ For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. What did verse 10 tell us? We are what? “made holy”. But what does verse 14 tells us? We are “being made holy”. Verse 10 is tell us the work is finished but verse 14 tells us the work is ongoing. So which one is it? It’s both. Verse 10 tells us our status change. Verse 14 tells us how our status change affects us moving forward. Our status change does not create the abolition of sin in our lives. Those who are holy are not yet fully holy. Those who are sanctified are not fully sanctified. Those who are perfected are not fully perfect. You can frame it in the positive with Jesus. Jesus has made holy those who are still being made holy. Jesus has sanctified those who are still being sanctified. Jesus has perfected those who are still being perfected.

This means two things for our lives:

• Only the holy pursue holiness.
  • One of the great assurances of our faith is our eagerness to become like Jesus
  • Those who are not in Christ don’t want to become like Christ
  • Find assurance in your salvation when your soul desires to become holier.
• Sinning stands in complete opposition to your righteous standing.
  • A fan dressed for one team but cheering for the other
    • Imagine that you were at a sporting event cheering on your favorite team
    • There is someone sitting right next to you, wearing all the same team colors as you
    • Except, every time the opposing team does something good in the game, this person start cheering excitedly
    • You’d look at this person and they’re crazy or you have zero understanding of the game
    • How much more does the world look at us when we wear the righteousness of Christ, but act like we belong to the enemy?
  • Our only option as Christ-followers is to pursue holiness
  • Our only goal should be to pursue holiness
    • Jesus didn’t do the work, so that we can stand in His righteousness, only to have us run in the opposite direction

The sin battle will never go away on this side of eternity, but you shouldn’t be fighting the exact same sin battle on this side of eternity. We learned this earlier in Hebrews: “It’s okay to be where you are spiritually, but you can’t stay there.” Start drinking the milk. Start eating the meat. Break the cycle of sin. End 2024 holier than how you started 2024. And don’t rely on your own power. Look at these final 4 verses: ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says, ¹⁶ “This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” ¹⁷ Then he says, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.” ¹⁸ And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. This new covenant is given to us on our hearts and minds with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we go for strength. 

I told you at the beginning of this message that God convicted me of not being intentional about pursuing holiness this year. I guess since that I’ve already reached my 2024 goal in 6 days, it is time for me to make a new one…For 2024, I want God to reveal to me the unseen areas of my life that are not pursuing holiness. My prayer is Psalm 139:23: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

What about you? What has the Holy Spirit laid on your heart in the last 30 minutes? What area of your life is God calling you to pursue holiness? Can you imagine the power that would flow through this place if we all spent a year expectant of God and pursuing holiness? I got a prayer text message about 30 minutes that encouraged me to pray for expectancy. I’m sure some of you got the same one. Let’s pray that prayer. Let’s move toward holiness and be expectant of God will do. Let’s pray.

Transition to Lord’s Supper and Prayer

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